Our galaxy is a very sparse place, but we've got all the time in the Universe. An object collides with the Earth, either destroying it or engulfing it, depending on the size and speed of the collision.It will remain intact, orbiting around our central, stellar corpse, until one of the following things happen: DeSouza Ĥ.) Swallowed or ejected? Even though it's been cleared of life, boiled, then charred and evaporated, and finally bombarded with quadrillions of years' worth of cosmic rays, our corpse of a planet will still continue to exist. masses, can result in the disruption and ejection of large bodies from solar and planetary systems. Particular configurations over time, or singular gravitational interactions with passing large. In this state, the Sun turns into a helium-burning red giant, and nothing on Earth can withstand this. When that occurs, the core will contract, heat up, and begin fusing helium to release even more energy than before. In another five-to-seven billion years, this is exactly what will happen to Earth, as the Sun runs out of hydrogen fuel in its core. With enough heat and energy, that's exactly what would happen to any world, with Mercury, the closest planet to the Sun, being a prime example. Of everything that ever lived on the surface reduced to charred ash of the record of everything that living creatures left behind turned into dust. You thought having our oceans boil was bad? How about the prospect of having every atom of atmosphere ejected from our world. ESO / Luís Calçadaģ.) Reduction to a barren rock. At this point, the Sun will swell, vaporize Earth's atmosphere, and char whatever's left of our surface. The interior will contract, heat up, and eventually helium fusion will begin. The cosmic experiment of complex, differentiated organisms will have come to its natural end.Īfter approximately five to seven billion years more, the Sun will exhaust the hydrogen in its core. Only, perhaps, a few simple organisms will survive high in the cloud-tops, but life as we know it will end on our world. Our planet will become more like Venus than like Earth today, becoming totally inhospitable to life on the surface. As the oceans boil and the atmosphere fills with water vapor, the greenhouse gas effects will take over, causing Earth's temperature to rise catastrophically. After another one-to-two billion years at the most, the amount of energy the Sun gives off will increase to a certain critical point: high enough that the amount of energy hitting a water molecule in Earth's ocean during the day will be sufficient to boil it. Over time, the Sun heats up and expands, becoming more luminous and emitting more power as time goes on. As time goes on, the helium-burning region in the core expands, causing the Sun's energy output to increase. core, which is where nuclear fusion occurs. This cutaway showcases the various regions of the surface and interior of the Sun, including the. On geological and astronomical timescales, this is likely to happen sooner than later, and will be the first "end of the world" for us. Whether we have descendants that survive or not is immaterial we will go extinct on this world eventually. Whether an out-of-this-world catastrophe, like an asteroid strike, occurs or not, the demise of humanity is inevitable. Humans themselves face pressure from a changing planet with limited resources, from other humans (in the form of nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons), and from the natural world (in the form of disease). Whether those offspring of humanity millions of years from now remain sentient, as we know it, is beside the point the point is that millions of years from now, even if there are descendants of humans still around, they won't be human any longer. Based on how evolution works, it is unlikely there will be any humans left even just a few million years from now. blink-of-an-eye: under half a million years. Here's what that's going to look like.Įvolutionarily speaking, human beings - or homo sapiens - have been around for a cosmic. Based on what we know, there are four ways the Earth will meet its eventual end, and they're all going to happen someday. Yet we don't live in a world where myth and mysticism dominate our thinking we know that we can comprehend all that's to come using the predictive power of science. Some claims are very specific others are more vague. Every few years, or maybe even every few months (depending where on the internet you go), a new story, speculation, or conspiracy will go viral, claiming that the end of the world is near. Or a rogue asteroid or comet slamming into us. But the end of the Earth? That's happening even if something like this never does. This has happened to Earth before, and will no doubt happen again. A collision between two large, rocky bodies in space can be catastrophic for one or both of them.